Questions about Common Law Union part of Application

[kb07]

Hello everyone;

My boyfriend and I are new here, we are about to begin the process and will be officially sending in Documents at the beginning of December. My main question is about the Common Law Union part of the application. We are aware that we need to get a notary to sign off that we are a couple....but I am wondering about the 12 months of living together part? We have been told a few different things but the Notary we talked to said he can sign it anytime before he leaves and it will be fine. But I was under the impression that it had to be dated for Dec. 8th 2012 (the day he is leaving the country while everything is being processed) because we have to prove that we have been living together for a year. Please advise if you know anything about this!!

Also, for the forms that we leave blank (because we don't have children etc) can we leave them blank in the application or do we just write not applicable??


Thanks everyone! ;D

 

[MissDominica]

The Declaration of Common-Law form has to be signed by both of you in front of a notary ANY TIME AFTER YOU HAVE BEEN LIVING TOGETHER FOR ONE FULL YEAR. If you get it signed together before you have been living together for a full year, it is not considered a common-law relationship by CIC (who designed the form) and is therefore pointless.

It does not have to be signed immediately in December when you are doing the application. It could be signed now as December is just over a month away. I don't think a month or two will make the form too old. I would not sign it though and try to send it 6 months later, so just make sure your application is ready in December.

You said your boyfriend is leaving the country in December. If you have been living together NOW for an entire year, then you can get it signed in advance if you want. If not, wait until it is a full year before getting it signed.


For the other forms that don't apply, some people don't send them and some people do. I personally included them and wrote Not Applicable on them because CIC can sometimes be idiots about forms and may say you sent an imcomplete application. So just be safer than sorry and send them and write NA.

Good luck!

 

[Ryathe]

From what I'm seeing in a guide:

"Statutory Declaration of Common-Law Union (IMM 5409)

Who must complete this form?

This form must be completed and signed by the sponsor and common-law partner, only if the latter is a co-signer on the application"

So if your common-law partner (applicant) is not a co-signer then you don't have to complete this form.

What I did was creating my own version of this declaration and getting it signed in front of the notary anyway, just to give the immigration one more evidence of our relationship.

Common-law = min 12 months living together. So whatever date AFTER that 12 months is on the form, doesn't matter.

As for the blank forms - just write N/A just in case. Don't forget to sign the part about the children as you're confirming there that you don't have any.

 

[AnaMaria]

From what I'm seeing in a guide:

"Statutory Declaration of Common-Law Union (IMM 5409)

Who must complete this form?

This form must be completed and signed by the sponsor and common-law partner, only if the latter is a co-signer on the application"

So if your common-law partner (applicant) is not a co-signer then you don't have to complete this form.

What I did was creating my own version of this declaration and getting it signed in front of the notary anyway, just to give the immigration one more evidence of our relationship.

This is very right. If you do not have co-signer, you don't have to. However, it is advisable to send this even when you don't have co-signer, just to add another evidence. What Ryathe did was actually good. Instead of that particular form, you can have a letter or something notarized. Either way, that has to be done after 12 months of cohabitation.

 

[nezya]

Hello everyone;

My boyfriend and I are new here, we are about to begin the process and will be officially sending in Documents at the beginning of December. My main question is about the Common Law Union part of the application. We are aware that we need to get a notary to sign off that we are a couple....but I am wondering about the 12 months of living together part? We have been told a few different things but the Notary we talked to said he can sign it anytime before he leaves and it will be fine. But I was under the impression that it had to be dated for Dec. 8th 2012 (the day he is leaving the country while everything is being processed) because we have to prove that we have been living together for a year. Please advise if you know anything about this!!

Also, for the forms that we leave blank (because we don't have children etc) can we leave them blank in the application or do we just write not applicable??


Thanks everyone! ;D

You can use the form Statutory Declaration of common-law partner. What we did is me and my common-law partner went to the court house here in alberta and the commisioner of oath was the one who signed our form for free and we included this form in our application and my sponsor was approved.

 

[kb07]

Thank you so much to everyone who responded! You answered my questions and I feel so much better! We are currently sorting everything out and applying in a month so wish us luck! ;0